feature request: only check for updates of long term stable (lts) kernel versions

[mjechow]

Is it possible to add an option to only check for long term stable (lts) kernel versions? I am using lts kernels only I don't want to be notified about other versions.

[bkw777]

How do you identify lts releases?

[mjechow]

You could use the latest tag of the linux-rolling-lts branch.
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/log/?h=linux-rolling-lts

[bkw777]

I'm not sure how to make use of that.
The .deb packages and the info about them are only coming from:
https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/
and
https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v6.2.2/ etc
I don't see any lts info that can be scrape out of either of those web pages.
I don't think I want to start trying to pull stuff from unrelated web pages which means yet more fragile page scraping, and needing both sites to be up or else the info we display is wrong, needing to match the already-unreliable free-form version strings now from two different sources, etc

[mjechow]

Ahh, yes I see. That unnecessarily complex and fragile.
Maybe it's possible to implement a manual filter. So that one could only see version defined by oneself?

[bkw777]

Even incorporating the git log page, I don't see how to get a list of kernel versions.
I'd be willing to make it a config option, but I need more description where exactly to get the info. For instance, what exactly would I scrape out of that git log page? I don't need code, just an explaination where the key bits are to be found.
There are version numbers all over the place, but which ones are lts? and the only thing that actually says lts, is "linux-rolling-lts" which is not a version number.

[AtomicRobotMan0101]

Is it possible to add an option to only check for long term stable (lts) kernel versions? I am using lts kernels only I don't want to be notified about other versions.

I thought about putting up a FEATURE request so it marked LTS visually (in some manner) as well.

But the more I thought about it, the users of Mainline are hardly the kind of people to be bothered by LTS considerations. They are on the forefront, the sharp end, the vanguard.... the risk takers :)

Though, it is a decent enough idea. I respect that @bkw777 is keeping it focused and tight.

[bkw777]

It might happen. The main problem with this is just having a source of data that can be queried on the fly and reliably matched up with something from the mainline-ppa site. The source of data could be anything. Scrape a web page, query an api, or even a git command to some repo to scrape git logs or something. Once there is some way to get a list of version numbers, it's not a big problem to add an option to filter the list to only show matching ones.

I mean, https://www.kernel.org/ lists exactly 6 "longterm"
I guess it would be easy enough to read that and only show those. They could have their own notification setting too so you get notified when one of those changes.

I assume those versions change once it a while, and it only ever shows the current version. So I couldn't show all versions, just whatever is the present version. But I just looked at a few and there are easy matches with ones from mainline-ppa. ex kernel.org says one is 6.1.31, and there is an unambiguous 6.1.31 on mainline-ppa. So, eh, maybe. I could add a link to the upstream changelog too: https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v6.x/ChangeLog-6.1.31 which says a lot more than https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v6.1.31/CHANGES

[AtomicRobotMan0101]

I do enjoy reading the change logs. A link would be excellent.

Perhaps I'm a bit weird in that, but it makes me feel I "know" the software a little more closely.